


for safekeeping

by i_am_sion



Series: ashedue week 2020 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ashedue Week (Fire Emblem), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:42:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23499949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_sion/pseuds/i_am_sion
Summary: day 1 of ashedue week // a somewhat nontraditional take on traditions
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Dedue Molinaro
Series: ashedue week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690933
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	for safekeeping

In the mornings before battle, Ashe would always wake up first. No matter how much importance Dedue placed on a proper night’s sleep or how much he urged him to climb back into his cot, he could never keep his eyes shut for more than a few measly, restless hours. His mind was filled with too much noise. His dreams weren’t any better. 

Before day broke, their tent would fill with a ghastly purple light. It terrified him as it signified the rise of the sun. The coming of another onslaught.

How could it be morning when it was so cold? So dark? How could he be expected to go out there, not knowing that he’d be fighting more of his friends? More of the people that he went to school with-- broke bread with, trained with… Grew up with. What if they were out there? Could he fight them?

He still remembered Lorenz’s crumpled body on the Great Bridge of Myrddin alongside Ferdinand, felled by the Professor they had so admired. The stones beneath them wept a most noble red. The color burned itself into the back of Ashe’s eyelids. It made his skin crawl.

Could he continue to tell himself it was either them or him and what gave him the right to think his life was more important than the one on the other side of his bow?

The thought made him tremble. A quiver ran from his fingers, up his arms and down his spine, until he was shaking from head to toe, and that was why he couldn’t sleep. He shook too hard to still himself into rest.

And so, in the deep purples of their shared tent, he’d sit on the edge of his cot, squinting until the sun climbed a little higher into the sky and the outline of Dedue’s sleeping form became easier to see. Ashe watched his large silhouette rise and fall with each deep breath he took. He tried to follow, filling his lungs when Dedue did and exhaling at the same time. He couldn’t keep up.

Between the slats in the opening of their tent shone a sliver of sunlight-- a clear dividing line in the ground between the two of them. Ashe didn’t have the heart to cross it. To cast a shadow on something so precious as the first sign of actual morning. He didn’t want to wake Dedue, only to have him fitted into his heavy armor and thrust into the jaws of battle with only so much as an axe. If he could only spare Dedue… If this war and all its cruelties could just spare Dedue and his Majesty, everything would be okay. 

But it didn’t work like that.

No amount of praying and begging the Goddess could stop whatever She had planned for them, just as it wouldn’t halt the rising of the sun and the coming of the day’s combat.

The purple in the tent shifted and morphed into a deep blue. Ashe had yet to wake Dedue. The world outside was beginning to stir with the clamoring grate of metal against metal-- of weapons being hefted around and armor being strapped on.

“You didn’t sleep,” Dedue said, his voice soft.

Ashe jolted from his thoughts. Lifted his nails from where they were embedded in the backs of his hands. He didn’t know how long Dedue had been awake, but he was already out of his sleep clothes and in his boots. He offered the other a shaky smile. It was the best he could manage. “You know I can’t.”

Dedue easily crossed the line that separates them, stepping over it in confident stride. It was like he never thought about it. Never wasted the energy on concerning himself with things that were only in his head. Just as how he had simply come out and kissed Ashe, the first time, there in the greenhouse so many years ago, before this stupid war. It seemed like they were only children at school then. 

Ashe remembered how he kissed him, again, after their reunion at the bridge. The sight of Lorenz’s corpse was still fresh in his mind, and he was blathering things about how he had thought he was dead and how he missed him and… Dedue simply pulled him close and kissed him, shutting him up. He was never a man of words. He only needed to tell Ashe that everything was alright but didn’t know how, and so he kissed him. 

In the tent, Dedue knelt before the other-- his former classmate, his brother in arms, his lover. “Get dressed,” was all he said, with his lips pressed against Ashe’s knuckles. 

The archer dragged his feet as he slipped into his many layers. His undergarments were first, and his high-collared shirt second. He pulled on his trousers, sitting as he watched Dedue maneuver around his armor with ease, strapping each separate piece onto himself with ease, even though it all probably weighed just as much as Ashe did. He dressed at an impressive speed. Ashe tugged on his boots and overcoat. He paused. He needed to put his heart guard on before he could fit into his pauldrons but... 

Ashe glanced into the crate that had his belongings but only found Dedue’s scarf.

“Oh. This must have gotten mixed up while we prepared back at the monastery,” he mused as he pulled it out.

Dedue, fully suited up, held Ashe’s leather heart guard.

Ashe couldn’t help but giggle at the mix up. It felt like he could suddenly breathe again. “Kneel down for me?”

Mobility wasn’t a strong point for a fortress knight like Dedue was, so it took him a moment to comply, but eventually he is down on one knee. The sight of the top of Dedue’s head like that was… alien to him. Intimate, even. It made his cheeks warm. 

Ashe wrapped the scarf around his neck, carefully resting it around his broad shoulders and tucking it _just so_. It had a traditional Duscur design. Dedue was carrying around a part of his home with him. He would hate for it to come undone in the middle of the battle. Or worse. Maybe it’d get caught on something. It could unravel and cause him to trip. Ashe shook the image from his head. 

When he had the scarf situated securely on his neck, Ashe fixed his medal onto it. He recalled fondly when Dedue used to wear it as an earring back at the academy. Now it hung proudly over his chest, hovering over his heart. He placed his fingers over the tassel that had been attached to it and leaned his forehead against Dedue’s.

“Please… please protect this heart for me. Bring it back to me.”

It wasn’t until he had said this prayer that he took a step back.

“There you go.” 

They stared at each other for a moment. Ashe’s ears burned. Did he say that out loud?

“Then allow me to put this on you.” Dedue told him-- though it sounded more of a request than an imperative in Ashe’s head. He held up the last remaining piece of Ashe’s armor.

“Oh. Sure, why not…” The archer replied sheepishly. 

“Lift your arms please.” 

Dedue worked with gentle, expert fingers. He had helped dress Dimitri many times before, so this all seemed like muscle memory as he slipped the straps over Ashe’s shoulder and around his ribcage. He kept the plates on the front and back from slipping as he pulled the buckle towards Ashe’s front to tighten it. 

He repeated the notion that Ashe did a minute before, resting his fingertips against the plate above the archer’s heart.

“I pray you’ll bring back this heart to me as well.”

Nowadays, there are no wars to be fought. No stones painted a horrible, searing crimson. No crumpled bodies on stones. There’s paperwork to be done, and tables to wait on. Recipes to be learned and flowers to be planted.

From Ashe’s room in his inn, the sunrise greets him and the ominous purple sky he had once dread shines much more gently. The blues it melts into are so much kinder, and the days that open up with them are peaceful. 

The grate of metal against metal outside his door are only the echoes of forks and knives on plates-- the sounds of people enjoying delicious food.

There is no more heavy armor to squeeze into. The layering of clothes to separate himself from the bite of a blade becomes protection from the cold. And still, five years after the end of the war, he finds the view of the top of his husband’s head humiliating.

Dedue kneels before him, and Ashe situates his threadbare blue scarf around his neck. He tucks and ties it securely, because it has a traditional design from his home on it and winters in Fhirdiad were chilly and Goddess knows what could happen to it if he didn’t fix it _just so_. He clips his old earring onto the fabric, setting the hook in a hole that had been worn open from years and years of the same silly ritual, and he holds his fingers against the tassel that hangs over Dedue’s chest.

“Bring this heart back to me,” he prays, but no longer does he pray to the Goddess. The Goddess did her job protecting them all those long years in the war. She deserved to rest. Ashe now instead directs his request to Dedue, and he knows, just as the sun would rise tomorrow, that he’ll do exactly as he says.

And every day, for as long as they could, they’ll do this again.


End file.
